Cinematic baseball birthday: Fred Mertz

Rob Neyer, baseball expert and cinemaphile, noted on SB Nation that Sunday would have been William Frawley‘s 125th birthday.

Frawley, a hard-core baseball fan, is perhaps best known for his role as Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy (and later My Three Sons), but he was a veteran actor dating back to the silent film era. And what Neyer neglected to mention in his interesting tribute was that Frawley appeared in several baseball feature films as well, including:

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Ron by Roth

In my "day job," I'm the features and sports editor for a weekly New Jersey newspaper, where I host another blog. Busy, busy, busy.

I did a profile piece on the award-winning cartoonist Arnold Roth and he was nice enough to "immortalize" me.